


Five

by Orinoco_II



Series: Codas [4]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M, Missing Scene, Post-Episode: s02e01 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 05:09:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14325289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orinoco_II/pseuds/Orinoco_II
Summary: Jack and Ianto spend a night avoiding themselves.





	Five

Ianto stands in the middle of his kitchen, staring at the pile of washing up on the surface and trying to remember the last time he did more than sleep here. Logically, he knows he’s been awake for over 24 hours and should be sleeping now, but there’s too much adrenalin pumping through his system for that to be a possibility. A perennial problem when working for Torchwood.

And tonight (this morning?) he has more than just adrenalin keeping him awake. A thousand mixed emotions flood through his system. He looks at the cereal bowl in the sink – a few soggy flakes floating in a pool of milk - and the empty coffee mug beside it. At breakfast, he’d been Ianto Jones, valued member of Torchwood Three, having finally won the trust and, dare he believe, respect, of his colleagues. He’d moved on. Now, he’s Ianto Jones, coffee boy and part time shag of their enigmatic boss, returned from God-knows-where to turn their lives upside down once more.

Over the past three months, Ianto has gone from torturing himself over his relationship with Jack to accepting that he needed to move on. He has moved on. Jack went and everything about his disappearance revealed that they were exactly what Ianto himself had always sworn they were – just sex, and nothing more.

So, he’d told himself: when – if - Jack comes back, we won’t start that again. No way. I’ve moved on. Unfortunately, that hadn’t stopped him wanting to throw himself into Jack’s arms the moment he saw him again, like the swooning heroine in some overblown romance. But he controlled himself. Told himself that under no circumstances would he be getting back involved with Jack again. Certainly not after the ex from hell had turned up.

And yet. There was Jack Harkness, nervous and shyly half-hidden in a doorway, telling Ianto he’d thought about him whilst he was away, and then asking him on a bloody date. Dinner. A movie. So Ianto said yes because, really, what else could he say?

Now they’re avoiding themselves. Ianto went straight home, without a backwards glance at Jack. He’d not been home that night, so he knows it’s safe to hide out here. Have a shower. Change his clothes. Get some sleep.

He’s been home fifteen minutes and not attempted any of those things. Simply stood in his kitchen, head hung, staring at the washing up and trying to make sense of the thoughts tumbling around his head.

Jack will have to come good on that promise of a date, he decides. He will hold out and make sure of it. If Jack wants something more then he’ll have to prove it. Ianto finally moves, takes a step forward and grabs the kettle, filling it from the tap and flicking the switch down. Familiar movements; autopilot. He leans on the surface, watching the water through the transparent strip down the side of the kettle as it begins to dance, tiny pinprick bubbles at first, building to a frenzied boil.

The switch clicks back up. He waits. The steam from the spout condenses on the splashback that runs along the kitchen surfaces.

One hand in his pocket, Ianto’s fingers close around his phone. He is weak. So weak.

He takes it out and types a message: _Fancy avoiding yourself round mine?_

For the first time in three months, the message delivers.

Ianto sets his phone down on the surface and, with shaky hands, takes a mug out of the cupboard and begins scooping coffee into a cafetiere. His eyes stray to the phone as he does so, watching and waiting, heart pounding.

When it buzzes and the screen lights up, he leaps on it immediately.

_See you in ten._

He closes his eyes. What is he thinking? Jack will come round, they’ll shag and everything will go back to exactly the way it was before. Won’t it? Maybe it will be different. He groans and lets his head drop. What is the matter with him?

To save further self-analysis, he adds a second scoop of coffee to the cafetiere and takes a second mug out of the cupboard. He only checks his watch seven times over the next ten minutes. Eleven minutes and thirty three seconds after Jack texted, the door buzzer goes. Ianto jumps and crosses straight to it. At least Jack hasn’t forgotten where he lives. That’s something, isn’t it?

He presses the button on the intercom. “Come on up.”

He tentatively opens his front door and sees Jack bounding up the stairs. Ianto’s stomach performs a few involuntary flip flops. Honestly, the man is infuriating. How does he have the nerve to be so attractive after everything he’s put them all through?

Jack pauses on his threshold, something new and uncertain in his eyes. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Ianto steps back to let him in.

Jack fills his small hallway. A memory stirs in Ianto, from the only time Jack has been in his flat before. That first night. Jack filled the place with his presence then, too.

“Let me take your coat,” he finds himself saying. He’s fairly certain that’s exactly what he said last time.

“Thanks.” Jack shrugs out of the wonderfully familiar greatcoat and hands it over. Ianto reverently hangs it beside his own modest collection of coats.

“I made coffee,” Ianto says. “Do you want some?”

“A cup of your coffee?” Jack replies brightly. “Like I haven’t been fantasising about that for the past year.”

Ianto’s in the kitchen, pouring coffee, before he registers what Jack has said. “Year?” he enquires slowly.

Jack makes a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Time travel,” he explains vaguely.

“Oh.” That’s the opener for Ianto to ask Jack where he was; to get some answers. But he doesn’t, in case Jack shuts him out. If he doesn’t try to talk to him, he won’t be disappointed when Jack clams up. “Here.” He hands Jack a mug.

“Thanks.” Jack wraps both hands around it and brings it to his nose, inhaling deeply. He closes his eyes and sighs. “That’s the stuff.” He opens his eyes and grins at Ianto. “Let’s just say, the catering wasn’t up to much where I’ve been.”

Ianto smiles. “Happy to oblige, sir.”

Jack frowns. “I thought we’d agreed to drop the sir?”

“Sorry. Habit.”

“One we’ll have to break.”

Jack regards Ianto over the rim of his mug. Ianto stares back.

Before he knows it, the mugs are abandoned and they’re kissing; hungry, frantic mouths clashing breathlessly, hands roaming through hair. Jack tastes so familiar and yet so exotic and Ianto’s on fire in a way he hasn’t been in so long. Jack flips them so that Ianto is pressed up against the kitchen surface, the edge of it jabbing into his lower back.

Jack is here, he’s back and he’s kissing him. Groins pushed together, Ianto feels the heat in him growing. Jack’s hands are under his jacket, tugging at his tie and working at his buttons, still kissing him as he does. Now his shirt is open and Jack’s lips drag down his chest, then his stomach, until he is dropping down in front of him and opening his flies.

Just like the first time, Ianto remembers. They were here in the kitchen and Ianto hadn’t a clue what he was doing. This time he does, fingers raking through Jack’s hair as he thrusts into him, his panting cries crescendoing as he reaches climax, a little sooner than he would have liked, but it’s been so long.

Jack’s back on his feet, mouths meeting again, Ianto stroking him, tugging in frenzy until he feels Jack moan and spasm and the hot spurt against his bare chest.

Jack rests his forehead on Ianto’s shoulder, his chest heaving against Ianto’s torso. They stand like that for a long while until the afterglow fades and reality bites. The surface is digging painfully into Ianto’s back and he’s sticky and uncomfortable.

“Jack?” he says softly.

Jack relinquishes his grip and straightens a little. He nuzzles against Ianto’s cheek – a distinctly un-Jack-Harkness-like move. “I missed you,” he murmurs against his jaw, his breath warm on Ianto’s neck.

Ianto’s eyebrows shoot up. “Really?”

Jack pulls away and looks at him sceptically. “Is that so hard to believe?”

Ianto glances away awkwardly. “No, I suppose, it’s just…”

“What?” Jack challenges.

Ianto shrugs. “I thought you were off having adventures.”

“It wasn’t exactly a laugh a minute,” Jack grimaces.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah, well.” Jack suddenly brightens, plastering on that mask of a smile that Ianto became so used to. “It’s over now. I’m back. We’re here. And I’m guessing it’s been a while since you last slept, so how about we go to bed?”

Ianto huffs out a small laugh. “Sure.”

They meet at the foot of his bed for more kissing, slower this time, more exploratory, as they methodically undress one another and collapse on top of the duvet, hastily flung back onto the bed that morning as Ianto rushed out of the door, late for being early yet again.

They move against each other, skin on skin, Ianto remembering exactly why he had fallen under Jack’s spell before. Jack’s body is so smooth and so warm, his hands everywhere, his lips burning into Ianto’s neck and throat and face. Ianto returns Jack’s attentions, fingers scurrying to those places he learnt that Jack enjoys. It lasts a little longer this time and when Ianto’s orgasm finally arrives, it fizzes through him to every extremity.

They roll apart, lying on their backs with legs entangled for some time. Eventually, Ianto shivers and then yawns. Jack turns his head to look at him.

“Sorry,” Jack smiles. “You were supposed to be getting some sleep, right?”

Ianto stretches his arms above his head and returns the smile. “No complaints here.”

Later, Ianto wakes in an empty bed. He remembers his promise to himself – that he would wait for that date before he let Jack back in. You’re an idiot, Ianto tells himself. As if Jack’s going to bother with dinner and a movie now; now you’ve jumped straight back into bed with him.

He freezes when he hears a noise from the bathroom. The toilet flushes. He squeezes his eyes shut and fakes sleep. Jack’s footsteps pad quietly across the bedroom carpet and the bed sinks as he climbs back under the covers. Ianto smiles despite himself. Jack is still here after all.

Still later, Ianto wakes again, peeling open sticky eyelids to find grey morning light filtering into his bedroom. He scrubs a hand over his eyes and into his hair. He starts when he spots Jack standing in his bedroom doorway, fully dressed.

“Morning,” Jack greets him.

“Morning,” Ianto mumbles back.

“Thanks for letting me stay,” Jack says.

“You’re welcome,” Ianto responds automatically because he’s not yet awake enough to process what’s happening.

“See you at the Hub?”

Ianto closes his eyes again and buries his face into his pillow. “Yeah.”

He hears Jack chuckle, turn and then the click of the front door shutting behind him. A moment later, an engine starts up outside. The SUV. Ianto takes a deep breath and drags himself out of bed. Time for that shower.


End file.
